Hopeland Preschool
Teacher Jeanine (Burundian), Teacher Janet, Teacher Rose (sick with malaria)…3 helpers: 2 local women and one American DTS student…and me.
There were around 39 children in total registered at the preschool, but the maximum while I was there was 35. The preschool was to serve the families of those in YWAM, and the families that were under the care of YWAM families, but the invitation was extended out into the local village as many of these young kids couldn’t afford to go to school. To give you a feel of their family situations: Of the six children that were in the highest class, 4 were orphans (an orphan in this country can also mean a single parent home) and 1 had both parents fighting aids.
The school house was 3 rooms, one large and one small teaching room & one small office (basically included a desk and some shelves with broken toys). To be entered from the outside was a covered cement eating area and two loo stalls with holes in the ground. Near the stalls was an outside sink so children could wash hands! Pee was often all over the floor so shoes were required to be worn. Shoes, due to dirt and mud were not worn in the classroom but kept in piles outside. There was no electricity in the building, but as school was in morning there was not a problem for light.
Basic Schedule
8:00-8:30 – Children begin to arrive and those that are there early can play with “projects” which were games, puzzles or books. These were played on the cement floor on top of pieces of fabric, as there are no available tables.
8:30-9:30 (or 10:00) – School starts and kids clean up their projects they are playing with. Then kids form a large circle in the class room for “Circle Time”. During this time the children: sing welcome songs, do the calendar & the weather, sing some worship songs, and then have bible time and a lesson.
10:00-11:00 – Children then break up into their appropriate class. There are three classes, Top Class (5 to 6 years?) – Middle Class (4 to 6 years?) – Baby Class (3yrs to 5yrs?). There is a wide range of the ages per class as it really depends on the individual academic level of the child. It was strange to have a 5 year old in the “Baby Class”! Here in their groups they do pure academic work: alphabet, counting, etc. Other than recess outside, there is no free play inside.
11:00-11:30 – Recess Outside…there was a slide and a few swings out front.
11:30-12:00 – Snack is served in the back covered patio area. One day the children had sugared tea and biscuits (plain cookies) and the other day hot porridge. For many children this was the first meal of their day. About a third of the children brought a packed lunch which they ate at this time as well…the children with food were pretty good about sharing with others.
12:00-12:30 – The Top Class returns to their room and continues with academic study and the other two classes meet in the large classroom in a circle and do corporate teaching and songs.
12:30 – Children go home. A few are picked up in a car, others on the end of a motorbike (one day I saw the assistant teacher and 3 children getting a ride!) and the others walk.
Personal Observations
-Prayer:
Kids are taught to pray out loud and on their own. Sometimes the teacher would call on a specific child to pray or she would ask all the children to pray out loud simultaneously. It was so sweet to see these little ones all shut their eyes and pray…not hesitating or looking around. Their prayers would last a few minutes too…not just a one line.
-Discipline:
Often times it was done in public, in front of the other children…to be a warning to them.
One example I saw was when a boy was not giving fellow students hugs when the kids were told to hug each other in the morning. The teacher kept giving him a chance to obey and hug someone but he stood still in quite defiance. She kept telling him, “Are you going to listen to the Devil or are you going to listen to Jesus”. Still not budging he was sent to another room to put his face against the wall. Other types of discipline…face towards the floor with body spread out (this was in the center of the circle)…face in a corner…or slapped with thin sticks or slapped on the hand. Later the boy publicly apologized in class and hugged a fellow classmate when told to do so.
-Asking Questions:
When children were asked a question during circle they would have to stand and reply in a full sentence. If questions were answered correctly they either: gave a nearby teacher a high five, gave the main teacher a hug, or given a cheer dance and clap by the class. Questions that were daily asked the students at circle:
How many days to we go to school? 5
How many days to we stay at home? 2
How many months in a year? 12
How many hours in a day? 24
What month is it? July
What number is this month? 7
-Songs:
Welcome Song- “We are happy to see you teacher, teacher” x2
Weather Song- “It’s a ‘cloudy’(insert weather) day and I thank God for the weather”
Bible Song- “The bible is the word of God”
ABC Song- a little different from ours
- School Supplies:
There were no copy machines available for the teachers to use so they, or a helper, would spend much of the class time copying a worksheet into their work books. I noticed that in the Top Class, the teacher there had carbon copy paper that she would use, but I think it was limited. Each child had their own notebook with all their work in it. In Uganda children are meant to bring their own supplies before the school year begins. Pencils were not sharp and erasers were scarce so often a whole class would have to share one eraser if mistakes were made.
Biblical Issues
Spiritual Warfare: This is taught very black and white to the kids. They learn the basic truth that they are either listening to the devil or to Jesus. Sometimes when a child was being shy to answer and was shut down or being disobedient…they teacher would say, “The devil is making you do that…do you love Jesus?...will you do what he says?”
Listening to the Lord: One activity the teacher did with the children was have them individually pray and ask the Lord to speak to them and then they had to share what they heard. Kids that didn’t say what they heard or said something inappropriate (this happen to one girl who said something like Jesus told her to hit people??...the teacher responded… “you have listened to the devil...try again”.)
Praying for the sick: Children were told by their teacher that when their parents were sick and not feeling good (as the reality was many of these kids has parents dying of aids) that they could pray for them…also when parents were sad and had a ‘sick heart’. Jesus could help them. The teacher shared how she had been having bad dreams and asked they children to pray for her…they circled around her and laid hands on her. This was practically showing the kids how they could pray for adults.
Forgiveness: The lesson that morning was about how God knows everything we do, even things done in secret. The teacher asked if any of the children want to admit anything they have done so that God can forgive them. One little boy (I love his honesty and desire to talk about potty talk)…admitted that he and a friend had su-sued outside. Su-Su means to pee here. The teacher addressed this publicly and reminded the children that they were not allowed to su-su outside or even from a tree (!)…but only in the loo. These two children had to publicly ask forgiveness in front of the class and tell their classmates that they wouldn’t do it again. It was simple, yet powerful. Then the teacher gave them a hug for confessing their sins and the class said “We forgive you”.
The Bible: Before the bible lesson each morning, a song is sung and the bible is passed around in the entire circle from hand to hand…sometimes this took awhile to get through 40 hands…but what I saw was it taught the children that the bible was a sacred and special book! Then the teacher would ask these questions and these were the children’s response:
What is the Bible? – “It is the word of God”
What does the Bible tell us? – “It tells us how God made us and love us”
Questions?
-In learning the alphabet here children are first taught to recognize the lower case letters. Then in the Middle and Top classes they work on identifying the Upper Case letters. I noticed this was bit tricky for them. It’s the opposite in the States as at a young age children are first familiar with the upper case alphabet.
-There was no practice on the sounds that letters make. I noticed this immediately as we stress it so much with our preschoolers in the states. There isn’t much pre-reading skills established. Perhaps they learn to read much later? Also there were no books that were read to the kids throughout the day. There was a so-called library with a few dozen old picture books…but the children just looked at the pictures and when I tried to read to them they couldn’t focus.
This is the main school house
Their calender and weather chart
Half of the classroom-we sat on this floor for circle
Precious Children...full of joy!
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